


my mother accused me of losing my mind (swore i was fine)

by artsyspikedhair



Series: Traumatized Ron/Abusive Weasley fics [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Arthur Weasley Bashing, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Metafiction, Molly Weasley Bashing, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Victim Blaming, Weasley Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-12 09:14:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15992198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artsyspikedhair/pseuds/artsyspikedhair
Summary: Molly Weasley was a capital-M Mother.(or, rather, a look at why she wasn't, and a snippet of the family's lives post-war)





	my mother accused me of losing my mind (swore i was fine)

Molly Weasley was a capital-M Mother. 

She led a dark-haired boy onto the platform, creating the stage for her last son to befriend him. She allowed her eldest to grow his hair out for years, and her second eldest to leave the country for Romania, working with dragons. She kept the house a home, magic holding up what appeared to be a patchwork of various houses on top of each other. She kept the twins in line, kept her sons alive until she finally made a daughter. She heaped praise on her Percy, who became Prefect. She knitted sweaters and baked fudge and, looking from the outside, appeared to be out of an orphan's daydream. 

Only, the Weasley family was not a daydream. The Weasley family was a large, impoverished family that started in war and grew knowing the peace was tenuous at best. Arthur worked every day, facing the sneer of Lucius Malfoy, facing biting tea kettles and cursed books that force Muggles to speak in limericks for weeks. Molly? When her husband flooed to work, when her children couldn't afford robes, when sometimes the only food they could afford was from the chickens in the backyard: what was Molly doing? 

Molly Weasley was working a full time job nobody asked her to work - Molly Weasley was a mum. 

A mother's job is to worry over you, correct? To scream and scream and scream when your children steal a flying car, to send Howlers when the twins get detention or Ron crashes the car; to defend the honor of a boy who has nobody by demeaning a fifteen year old girl? 

Molly Weasley was a mum to all her children - all eight of them. Nobody asked her to adopt Harry, but she fretted over him like one of her own. And a mum's worry, expressed as righteous fury, how could that be wrong? To insist on asserting your will over that of the orphan's godfather, the man who was supposed to raise Harry when his parents died, the man who had survived torture in the worst place on the planet, facing his worst memories day after day for twelve years as happiness was drained from him to feed monsters? She never knew Harry's parents, only knew Harry for two short years more than Sirius did, but Harry was hers. Harry was a child meant to believe in frivolous joy, in happily-ever-after, not war. She was in the right, she was always in the right. Anywhere she was was her house, not like Grimmauld Place belonged to anyone who was a person anyway, not as far as Molly was concerned. Sirius was a child, and children are protected innocents, not people who can hurt and have agency.

Molly Weasley treated Harry as one of her own. Look at how she treated her own: 

She didn't notice the obvious fear as she angrily berated her children in front of Harry. She ignored the claims of bars on windows and child starvation, preferring to shush Fred and George rather than help. She was the master at letting her children know when they were "over-exaggerating, making up stories, hurting others for no good reason." 

Molly Weasley was far more subtle than the Dursleys, but Harry could still tell she played favorites. Look at how she treated her own: 

Her twin sons treated the health of children as a joke, as a means for profiting! And why might they view children as product testers, means to an end of owning their own shop? Molly valued her other children over them: "Perfect Percy," Ron makes Prefect - "That's everyone in the family!" Charlie's Quidditch prowess as Seeker is highly praised, the twin's Beater positions earn crickets of silence. Ginny's the baby of the family, and the three older brothers were both academically and professionally successful. Molly rarely bothered to try telling the two apart. Any wonder the twins found fun in mischief? Any wonder they had middle-child-syndrome? 

Not that Ron had it any easier - no, Ron is an insecure wreck by the tender age of eleven. His introduction of his family: "Bill was Head Boy and Charlie was captain of Quidditch. Now Percy's a prefect. Fred and George mess around a lot, but they still get really good marks and everyone thinks they're really funny. Everyone expects me to do as well as the others, but if I do, it's no big deal, because they did it first." Harry always knew he would never be loved by his aunt and uncle, but Ron? Ron believed he had to earn his family's love - had to earn the right to be made a sweater in a color he actually likes, a sandwich he actually likes, to earn enough love and goodwill to deserve a wand. 

Ron hid his broken wand from his mother even when backfired so badly he was puking up slugs. Not out of pride, or the belief she wouldn't care (which was why Harry hid stuff from his guardians), but because he thought she'd tell him he deserved it. "It's your own fault your wand's broken -"

The blaming children for their own problems is a pattern as well. Molly and Arthur both heavily imply Ginny wouldn't have been possessed if she had listened to Arthur's advice about brains and trust - never mind she was only eleven, never mind she was friendless and her brothers were lost in their own worlds instead of looking out for her, never mind that she had almost had her soul drained out of her by a younger Voldemort! No, she was foolish and to blame. Even though Harry Potter was still a child at fifteen, Ginny was supposed to know better at eleven. Parents aren't supposed to help their children deal with trauma, are they? No no, a pat on the head and a don't-do-it-again will suffice, now we're off to Egypt! 

And Percy! Supposedly Perfect Percy, suddenly a spy for the Ministry when he finally achieves his goals in spite of his father's position! Percy, who was taunted without end in his own home, who spent an entire summer writing letters to his girlfriend rather than be social, who was expected to gladly come home the minute his mum decided to forgive him for not doing anything but being slightly distrusting over the claim that another war has started! Percy Weasley spent years only being acknowledged in order to tear his brothers down, and yet- 

When Percy cuts off contact with his family after the war, Howler after Howler needs to be hit with an Incendio! When George moves into an apartment above his shop, Molly Weasley is always there with a comment about how quiet the house is without you, dear -as if she hadn't burnt his loud inventions a few years earlier! When Ginny finds herself remembering what she thought she'd buried of first year, she is met with "Get over it-" "You need to move on, dearie" "We are not getting you a Mind Healer! How dare you suggest I get a job, when I sacrificed years of my life raising boys all for you! You're wasting so much of your potential!" "Are you sure you don't want to try dosing Harry with Amortentia? Your father fell for me with it and we were married in the next two months." 

Ginny moves in with Harry, Ron, and Hermione after the stress becomes too much. Hermione leaves for Australia the night Ginny left, weeping and looking over her shoulder, terrified Tom was somehow back. 

Ron, well, Ron never stopped trying to earn his mum's love. Only after she died and Ginny refused to stay in the flat if he commissioned a portrait did he realize what damage she'd done to the family. Harry had agreed with Ginny, as had, surprisingly, Hermione! 

"Remember Sirius's mum? Obviously your mum's not bigoted, but she expects us to either stay children forever or marry and have me quit my position at the RLF to become a full-time mum like she was." Hermione huffed. She'd gotten a position as a lawyer for Creature rights, as the Wizarding World apparently didn't have law school or bar exams. She planned to attend Muggle law school eventually, but for now she helped werewolves sue for the right to keep their accounts under their name rather than their guardians. The Remus Lupin Foundation was winning case after case, especially since her first act as a lawyer was to dose all accused Death Eaters with Veritaserum and, even if they had been imperio'd or otherwise coerced, the Ministry court ruled that none who partook in the war as Death Eaters could hold public office, including Wizengamot seats. 

"But you're pants with children! And I don't want kids either - okay, maybe a portrait would be rather unpleasant..." 

Hermione's job occasionally brought her in the path of Percy, who'd become a Mind Healer for Wizarding Family Services. She gave the older man the address to the flat, with a note saying: Ron's having difficulty with the death. He can't reconcile his idealized view of Molly with the reality. I think writing him would help. 

The future could hold many things, but one certainty remained: History books would never write Molly Weasley as the ideal mum, not while her surviving children were alive to set the record straight.


End file.
